Senior Staff Engineer, UxS Integration and Systems; R5507) Security Clearance

Position: Senior Staff Engineer, UxS Integration and Systems (R5507) with Security Clearance
Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI's technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit (Use the "Apply for this Job" box below).

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Job Description:

Shield AI builds intelligent systems that protect service members and civilians. Our products include Hivemind autonomy software and aircraft systems, and our teams support customers and operations across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. Shield AI is seeking a senior, hands-on UxS Integration and Systems Expert to help ensure Hivemind can be developed, tested, demonstrated, and supported on representative unmanned systems with confidence.

This role sits at the intersection of autonomy software, unmanned aircraft and robotic systems, onboard compute, networking, radios, sensors, flight controllers, simulation, test operations, and customer-facing demonstrations. This is a senior technical leadership role for someone who is both a builder and an operator.

The right candidate can move comfortably from architecture discussions to benchtop integration, from lab troubleshooting to field execution, and from platform evaluation to clear recommendations for engineering, test, product, and operations leaders. You will serve as a trusted systems-integration authority for Hivemind test and demonstration hardware. You will help teams select and prepare representative platforms, understand integration tradeoffs, improve test readiness, diagnose cross-disciplinary issues, and translate lessons from real hardware into better engineering, test, and operational practice.

The role requires strong judgment, calm execution under pressure, and the ability to bring structure to ambiguous technical environments without overfitting to a single platform or workflow. What you'll do:
* Serve as a senior technical focal point for Hivemind integration and test readiness across unmanned aircraft, robotic systems, representative test vehicles, onboard compute, radios, sensors, payloads, and supporting ground equipment.
* Lead hands-on integration and troubleshooting efforts that span autonomy software, hardware, flight controllers, communications systems, networking, operator interfaces, and field operations.
* Partner with engineering, test, product, operations, field, and customer-facing teams to evaluate new platforms and determine how they can best support Hivemind development, validation, training, demonstrations, and customer objectives.
* Help take systems from early concept or benchtop integration through representative test, field execution, and operationally relevant demonstrations.
* Provide senior-level technical judgment on platform suitability, integration complexity, test readiness, risk, safety, maintainability, cost, availability, and customer value.
* Support test planning and execution across simulated, hardware-in-the-loop, live-vehicle, and flight-test environments while keeping the role focused on practical system readiness and evidence quality.
* Help define clear readiness criteria, test expectations, operating assumptions, and handoff points for representative hardware used by Hivemind teams.
* Diagnose complex cross-disciplinary issues and help route them effectively across software, autonomy, hardware, flight-test, networking, and operations stakeholders.
* Contribute to test methods, metrics, and evidence practices that improve confidence in Hivemind behavior across representative and real-world environments.
* Support automation, tooling, and data-review practices that improve repeatability, reduce manual burden, and make hardware-based testing easier to operate at scale.
* Capture and share practical knowledge from platform bring-up, test events, flight operations, and customer-facing demonstrations so teams can reuse lessons learned.
* Mentor engineers and operators on systems integration, hardware readiness, field troubleshooting, test discipline, and practical autonomy test execution. Projects you might work on:
* Evaluating a new unmanned aircraft, ground robot, customer-selected platform, or lab setup for suitability as a Hivemind development, test, training, or demonstration asset.
* Leading technical preparation for a Hivemind test event or customer demonstration that depends on representative hardware, onboard compute, communications, sensors, and operator workflows.
* Advising a program team on the right level of platform fidelity needed for a pilot effort, internal test campaign, or customer-facing technical engagement.
* Supporting integration between Hivemind and flight-control systems, onboard compute, sensors, payloads, radios,…